Shady Knoll Owner Denies Any Wrongdoing In BCT Dispute

BREWSTER – Last week the Brewster Conservation Trust announced that the state land court had ruled in its favor regarding an encroachment dispute with Shady Knoll Campground. Now, Shady Knoll owner Dan Nussdorfer is alleging that while he may not have won the case, the facts say otherwise. 

The case goes back to 2018 when the Brewster Conservation Trust (BCT) was alerted to unregistered work that had been done in a wetlands buffer zone around an old cranberry bog on the Eddy Sisters’ property, which abuts Shady Knoll Campground. 

A former conservation agent reached out to BCT alerting them that Nussdorfer had not filed a notice of intent (NOI) to dig up the area and install underground utilities. 

“[Once] we decided to improve the land and make it better for our customers and put in accommodating utilities, they came over and told everyone that we dug up the land, put utilities in on their property, then trucked in fill to cover it up,” Nussdorfer said in an interview Friday. “None of it was true.”

The disputed area is a 2,500-square-foot patch at the far south end of the Eddy Sisters’ property. Nussdorfer says the campground has been using the area “openly, freely and without hiding it” since the early 1970s. 

After BCT sent a letter to Nussdorfer about the encroachment, Nussdorfer said he tried to work with the organization to find a solution without going to court. He claims he offered to buy a portion of the land and at one point suggested a land swap. 

Hal Minis, former president of BCT, said the piece of land that Nussdorfer proposed to swap was a narrow strip nowhere near the value of the land being disputed. 

After negotiations stalled between the two parties, Nussdorfer’s lawyer sent a letter to BCT claiming adverse possession, sometimes referred to as “squatter’s rights.” According to Massachusetts law, adverse possession is a “legal doctrine allowing a person to claim ownership of land owned by someone else, provided they occupy it openly, exclusively, and without permission for a legally defined period of 20 years.” 

The legislation for adverse possession was amended in November 1991 to include language that restricted anyone from claiming adverse possession on conservation land held by a corporation or trust “for the recovery of land or interests in land held for conservation, parks, recreation, water protection or wildlife protection purposes.”

Thus, the complaint filed in court limited the timeframe of claiming adverse possession to before the amendment, meaning Nussdorfer had to prove the campground used the land openly from 1971 to 1991.

Nussdorfer claimed the campsites in question had existed in their current layout since 1971 and the perimeter of those sites had never changed since the 1950s. 

Representatives from BCT claimed the land was never touched until Nussdorfer’s father purchased the campground in 1977, clearing brush and expanding his campsites and allegedly installing underground utilities in the area. 

Nussdorfer said the only reason he was unable to prove this was because he didn’t have photographic evidence of the area prior to 1976. 

“The judge actually did say that [Shady Knoll Campground] proved beyond a reasonable doubt that we did use that land openly, freely, without hiding it, and consecutively, from 1976 to the present day,” he said. 

In the decision documents from the trial, the judge wrote, “While the Nussdorfers’ actual use of the disputed areas after their purchase of the campground in 1977 may well support their claim for adverse possession, I am unable to find that a legally sufficient degree of adverse possession took place for the full 20 years the law requires.” 

Before 1977, the campground had a number of different owners. Graham and Priscilla Bates bought the property in 1954 and established Shady Knoll Campground. In 1964, they sold the property and the business to Ann Fowler and Nancy Barnes, who only owned it for about two years. In 1966, Robert and Edith Thomas purchased the business and property. 

In 1972, Thomas connected the main house to town water — the first structure on the property to receive water. 

Once Nussdorfer’s father purchased the property, he began to expand the electrical service and water supply. Between 1977 and 2018, he installed a water supply network to all campsites and made improvements to the septic systems. 

The business was sold to an LLC controlled by Nussdorfer and his sister in 2017. By 2018, the extended electricity and cable television utilities were added to campsites 93 to 100, which are closest to the Eddy Sisters’ property.

Based on the court decision, Nussdorfer is required to remove the utilities, which he maintains would happen soon if BCT wasn’t continuing to alter its demands. 

“I’ve been ready to go and move the utilities since the day that the court ruled,” he said. “Brewster Conservation Trust and Brewster Conservation Commission are the two things holding us up. They keep changing their demands, which we are not going to abide by.” 

Because it is a wetland, the area is under conservation commission jurisdiction, which means the commission needs to issue permits for any work on the property. 

BCT Executive Director Amy Henderson said that because the work is on their property, they will need to sign off on any conservation permits. They didn’t approve the first draft because Nussdorfer wanted to pull just the wires and cables out while leaving the remaining infrastructure underground. 

Henderson said they approved the second draft, which required Shady Knoll Campground to remove everything. 

The conservation commission’s public hearing on the matter was originally postponed due to the blizzard. After it took place on March 10, Henderson said it is now up to the commission to issue an order of conditions. 

Henderson said they included adding a fence that would define the property line with the understanding that it would be up to BCT to install and pay for it.